3 Worst Mistakes You Must Avoid when making Cat Pictures

As I am writing this blog post about cat pictures, my beloved cat Casper is lying next to me.

These last couple of weeks I have been sharing some easy but very important techniques on my blog that will help you to improve your cat’s pictures dramatically.

Now, I want to tell you about 3 things you must absolutely avoid at all time when making cat pictures, because they often lead to bad cat pictures. And our motto is: Every cat deserves amazing pictures!

1. NEVER USE FLASH

You may have seen cat pictures with those creepy flash eyes on cats. A flash is a tiny light source and is just about the most unappealing, unflattering light you could use.
I know it is available on DSLR cameras and smartphone, but unless you are an expert photographer, it will not be beneficial for your cat photography.
Turn it off and forget it exists.

If you need more light, use an extra light source or try to use more daylight, go closer to the window for example,

But once again: never use your on-camera flash or your smartphone’s built-in flash, it just makes ugly pictures.

2. NEVER USE DIGTAL ZOOM 

Be aware that the zoom function on smartphones is digital and not optical. This means that zooming in will result in a poorer quality image and more blurry pictures.
You must avoid pictures of low quality at all cost.

I took the picture below with the digital zoom of my Iphone. When you see the picture on a larger resolution screen or if you zoom in on the picture, you will quickly see the pixelation of the photo, and thus the bad quality.

The best way to zoom into your cat with an smartphone is to use your feet and walk closer to your cat’s position. It’s that simple!

There is only one situation I can think of when the use of the optical zoom is justified: you are at the Zoo and you don’t want to climb the fence to actually get closer to the tigers…

3. NEVER MAKE CAT PICTURES WITH DISTRACTIONS IN THE BACKGROUND

Our eyes are very good at seeing what we focus on and ignoring the rest, but on a photograph we can’t ignore the cluttered, distracting background. As a matter of fact it can be very distracting and ruin a good picture.

It’s easy to get carried away when taking photos, and leave distractions in your photos that are obvious when looking back at them, but not obvious at the time you are taking pictures.

So take your time, look at what and whom you want on the photograph. Then look around, all around, see if there is dirty laundry in the corner, disturbing things lying around, strange reflections or shadows, etc and get rid of clutter and distracting objects first …
aim for less.

Do this every time you take a photograph. Even when you look at your photos, look at what shouldn’t be there. The more you do it, the more naturally it comes.

Three simple things you can apply now!

There you go! Try to avoid these three things in all of your cat photography and you will  improve your cat’s pictures dramatically.
And once again our motto is: Every cat deserves amazing pictures!